Lol! I don't think the fans on the internet make it a difficult town to play in. No one pays attention to that. What has always made Boston a tough place to play is the media coverage. Print media was brutal to Ted Williams, Yaz and Rice. They murdered managers. Believe it or not, they are not nearly as nasty today as they used to be. There is much more coverage today and more intrusion on their privacy in the clubhouse, but for the most part the coverage is benign. The fans at Fenway are great. I can't remember one of our guys in uniform getting booed, not even a psycho like Carl Everett. So, stop it with all this nonsense.^
Every year stands on its own. That's the way it works. They did a great job last year and they got kudos from everyone. This year was a total implosion and they deserve the blame. Everything else is just a rationalization or excuse. Bad luck? Please. If we are going to attribute this season in part to bad luck, then maybe some of last year was good luck? The good luck last year did not turn a 95 loss team into a 95 win team just as this years bad luck didn't turn a 95 win team into a 95 loss team. The critics didn't make this team suck. This was a terribly constructed team. Last year's World Championship matters to the extent that this FO crew gets a mulligan for this atrocious performance. If they had been eliminated by Tampa in the ALDS, the FO would be getting cleaned out after this season along with the roster.